The Iron Monarchy, Book Two: The Architects of Ragnarok Trilogy
by FreedomOftheSeas
Summary: The Nine Realms have ripened for destruction; and Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods, the rain of dust and ashes, comes to harvest the fruits of its iniquity. As the upper realms are engrossed by war, more serpents begin to rise from the ash of Yggdrasill than any fool can imagine.
1. Chapter 1 - A Hidden Place

****Haven't read Wrought of Iron and Silk, Book One: The Architects of Ragnarok?** **Find it on my profile!****

**Full Summary: **

The Nine Realms have ripened for destruction; and Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods, the rain of dust and ashes, comes to harvest the fruits of its iniquity. As the upper realms are engrossed by war, more serpents begin to rise from the ash of Yggdrasill than any fool can imagine.

The last surviving heir to the Alfheim throne plans to take the realms in ransom, and his bargaining power is terrifying - nothing short of Ragnarok itself.

What of the Æsir? What of the elves? Will the dwarves grieve before their door of stone, Masters of Walls?

And what of Loki and Cecilia? After the end of the world, will there still be love? Or only revenge?

**Enjoy!**

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><p><em><strong>Chapter 1 – A Hidden Place<strong>_

**I**t was one of those cold dusks that fall suddenly in the mountains between Vanaheim and Asgard. Soon the immense valley would be shrouded in a melancholy shadow that seemed to glitter in the bitter cold. The crests of the mountaintops were visible against the sky's tenuous, golden hues – as though to create a majestic amphitheater of destruction – until only a deep, dark blue remained spattered with tremulous drops of light above a sea of black ink.

Some gritty, biting gusts of wind blew in from the forest depths, howling mercilessly, desolately. As they passed over the sunken depths of the valley, the gusts carried vague, lonely sounds, the breath of the winds. The ancient trees creaking in the cold night sounded like a painful sigh expelled by the savage mountains.

As the shadows deepened, the icy sigh of the winds intensified. Finally when there was nothing but darkness and more darkness all around, a symphony of brash nocturnal sounds reverberated throughout the valley.

At the farthest reaches of the abyss, the summit, a parapet dominating the deep valley, was where the Battle of the Upper Realms advanced ominously into the emptiness, stalking their enemies in the dim light, aiming toward death.

Standing behind the natural parapet that protected her position, Cecilia stared for a moment at that black sea. Red dots or scarlet stains wavering like ghostly phantasms emerged from the blackness, and engorged drops of luminous blood appeared to spread out on the vast expanse of dark velvet, like islands of fire.

Islands, dots, drops, stains of light and blood. They disappeared, then appeared again in the inky black, grew pale, only to be eclipsed again. Strange, tragic disappearances.

Mournful complaints: far-off whinnying and howling, which seemed to make the shadows quiver, burst forth from that dark cavity, constellated by tragic sparks of fire and blood. In the darkness, the plains between Asgard and Vanaheim burned. Spread out from one end to the other, the remaining deserted camps – a few huddled in the center – had been set on fire and sputtered away in the shadows. These were its last few moments, its dying breath.

In the depths of her tortured soul, Cecilia meditated. How arrogant they had been in their boundless, savage ignorance. The youth of the realms faced extinction while the capricious obstinacy of the colossal tyrants sat high in their impregnable nests!

The kings of the Upper Realms had challenged death with epic disdain. Hideous was the spectacle presented – dead and dying, friend and foe, huddled in indiscriminate ruin, walking in blood, and shivering in the agonies of dissolution; blackened headless trunks and fragments of limbs, ghastly sights and sounds of woe, filled the scene of combat. Innocent lives taken with incomparable vigor for their king's delirious, childlike dreams. Their immense empires treasured and defended by savagery and faith in their arrogant, tyrannical rule. This was innocent blood that flowed; the generous blood of fathers, sons and brothers – the blood that will flow until the very last one of them dies. This marked them as something infinitely rare, exquisite and sad!

In the darkness, Cecilia rushed into the dark sea and pell-mell into a Vanir throng. She was a murderer now, although she had only sought to protect her people – to protect Loki, she shot the arrow that killed both Njord and Loki's brother, Balder. Yet Loki had forgiven her more easily than she seemed to forgive herself. She fiercely regretted taking innocent life and her shame mingled with resentment. In the end, she had not meant to kill; it had just come out of her, in the same way as when she'd taken other lives on the battlefield.

She bit her lip, hardening herself, and concentrated on keeping up with the battle, which was not easy. Deftly using her shield to block the panicked thrusts of pike and sword from her enemies, Cecilia expertly sliced two hooded Vanir through their middles. Hearing their dying groans, she broke through the strangling circle and ran past the tiny knot of bleeding and battered men.

It was like the bygone times – the thrill of the frontline, and how one would wager every bit of their future going into combat. The nostalgia was palpable: a raw hurt. Was this what she'd tried to regain: the sense that everything could be won or lost?

As she moved through the chaos with a greater sense of ease, other arguments stirred within her. The forces against her were ruthless, and she must be as ruthless as her enemy to achieve anything. Then she thought of what Tin had said, ages ago it seemed, about the ethics of battle, and her own doubts about them: "_We remember that if we did not try to adhere to our hearts, even in our extremity, we would become like them and that would be a greater defeat_."

Well, perhaps she could not afford such niceties, if she were to survive the battles of Ragnarok.

Fighting off the murderous advance of a bearded attacker with a killing thrust of her sword, Cecilia suddenly heard screams from farther down the trail. As she watched in horror, another group of wild men suddenly materialized and attempted to join the fray.

Almost immediately, they fled like cowards when the elves, who had scampered onto the towering cliffs above the trail and behind them, began to skewer them with a murderous rain of well-aimed arrows. Cecilia witnessed at least a dozen men crumple to the ground with the first volley of arrows. The remaining Vanir, seeing their escape route now riddled with the bodies of their own men, furiously charged the center in which Cecilia was struggling to stay alive.

She nearly buckled against the weight of the frenzied charge. Slashing at the horde in front of her, she screamed as panic gripped her and, for a brief moment, fought against an almost overwhelming desire to run. Frantically she craned her head, searching behind her for an avenue of escape. She was surrounded.

The whizzing rush of a blade cutting the air to her right caused Cecilia to instinctively duck away. She turned to see the wild-eyed, elf commander, Asher Lios-Alf, brandishing a bloodied sword. Before she could react to the specter of her past, he screamed and charged. Staggering backwards, she clumsily parried his short, chopping attack, just managing to avert being sliced through her bosom.

Turning on her once more, Asher stopped and simply stared, realizing who he faced; his eyes had gone as gray as the paths etched into the land by the armies of the Upper Realms.

Cecilia was shaking, not by choice, but in shock. She dropped her sword and fell to her knees, weeping; her thick, clear tears leaving sticky tracks on her cheeks. "Forgive me," she pleaded, holding out her hands. _For everything. For bathing your world in blood. For letting you die. For this._

Asher's touch whispered across her skin, stirring her hair. "Raven."

Then there was utter silence. It all disappeared, all that variegated, quivering richness of the sounds of mêlée. It just disappeared. The order of silence was definitive.

_Raven, _a voice whispered. It did not hold the love, the sorrow and the warmth as Asher's did when he spoke her name.

Cecilia rose warily, her feet shuffling toward the sound, heedless of her mind's protest. Words failed her, ineffective against that which she couldn't name or see.

"What's happening to you, Raven?" Asher's concern brought her back to herself. "You're fading. Where are you going?"

_Raven_, a voice called again. Cecilia's heart lurched in her chest. She clawed at her throat, fighting for air. _Come or die._

From the dark eternal pines a chorus rang in epic grandeur, a hymn to the dead. From the depths of the battlefield other sounds were detected … different, tragic. Asher was at her side, anxious. Cecilia reached for him, her hand closing around nothing. She was as translucent as he was.

Another sound stirred on the dead plain, a soft click of nails striking armor. Asher turned sad eyes toward her. "Run, Raven. He's come to claim you."

Before them, the luminous islands of blood spread out on a dark sea and pockets of shadows lingered. One such shadow blinked, a pair of eyes the color of sapphires. The shadow growled. Teeth flashed in the half-light of dawn and circled them, feinted and retraced its track.

As if on cue, Rilien Lios-Alf stepped out of the blackness; a rippling mane of blond surrounding his handsome features added to the menacing scowl that draped on his face. That expression, imparted by love that was forcibly restrained, caused more alarm than sympathy.

"Too late." Her lips formed the words, but she'd lost the strength to voice them.

Drawing a dagger, Asher put himself between her and his elder brother. It was then that Rilien's expression changed, his face filled with pure, sadistic, rancor. Cecilia had never seen such a look before in all her life.

Gradually, the armor and skin of Asher's torso began to tear open, painting a gruesome, mirror image of his fatal wound suffered at the hands of the trellqueen. As blood gushed from his engorged abdoman, the hole in Asher's stomach began to fill with living things – to _crawl_ with them. Rats emerged from his blood, chittering. Worms crawled from his rotting flesh, quivering in the air. And there were flies, too. Endless flies, feasting upon his body.

Aware of the new pains beginning to break out all over his body, Asher twisted around to face Cecilia. She could feel his horror – his terror. She felt the need in him not to die in such a way, not to be consumed by the ravages of darkness, of the low creatures that infested the dead.

A pain grew in her chest, expanding like a seed cracking its hull and setting roots. She screamed. Neither man nor shadow paid her heed.

Cecilia startled awake, panting hard. The nightmare had been so real, or was she still dreaming? Daylight pierced her eyes with shards of pain. Slamming them shut, she prayed for the pain to ebb. Moments before, Asher was dying before her, his body contorted with agony. She felt his fear and squeezed it back.

It was over. It had been over for almost a year.

Still, her mind raced, quickly finding that being awake was no salvation. While she had awakened and escaped the horrors of her dream, she had not escaped the pain. Deep breaths helped to calm her disorientation. She tried to sit, but the world tilted on its axis and a spike of nausea welled up through her.

"My Queen," Loki whispered, his eyes filled with concern as he pressed a cool palm to her forehead. "Touch me, feel my heart under your hand. Look at me." She tried, forcing herself to focus through the haze on her surroundings. "Cecilia, look at me."

For an instant, she didn't recognize his face. "Loki?" Cecilia cupped her cold, shaking fingers around his hand and pressed his palm to her face. Then she shook her head, searching for the words to describe the awful terror that engulfed her, and couldn't seem to stop herself from shivering. "I'm so cold."

Loki slipped off his leather jacket and draped it over her shivering shoulders. Gently, he drew her near; his strong embrace closed protectively around her. As his large hand lightly stroked her back and warm breath fanned her cheek, she felt cherished, protected. Instinctively, Cecilia clung to him, trembling as the last vestiges of her nightmare faded away. "The worst nightmares occur in that dreadful eternity before sleep."

As she looked into his eyes, she couldn't help wondering what her distressed psyche was trying to tell her. "Did you see it? My dream?"

With a sigh, Loki shook his head. "No." All that mattered was that he was there now. Lately, it was only in his arms that she felt safe. "His power over you grows strong again," he murmured as he grasped her chin, forcing her to look at him. "Do not fear the darkness that might come from beyond the stars; ward your mind. Do you understand?"

His eyes were burning with intensity, his expression grave, but she knew she lacked the strength to do so. It was that irrefutable fact, combined with the knowledge of her past misdeeds that caused her to close her eyes, unable to meet his gaze. "Yes," she finally managed, her voice was a strangled gasp.

"Rilien's torn the fabric of what is. Soon, those who stand against him will be gone – Midgard, Nidavellir …" he made a strange whistling sound, like wind in a wasteland, eerie and unbearably sad. "He will conquer in order to destroy. He will unmake the realms."

"It seems he's succeeding," she said, stiffening at the thought of Rilien destroying her one, true home. "But it will not be pride or power that wins this war, if it can be won."

Loki tilted his head to one side, looking her over. In mere moments, his entire countenance changed. Gone was the sad, melancholy look. In its place was one of amusement. He smiled.

The intensity of his gaze left her feeling flustered. "What are you smiling at?"

"You." His thumb came up to brush her cheek – it was warm and smooth as satin as it touched her skin, sending comforting tingles through her. He leaned in and pressed a kiss into her forehead. Emotions churned in his eyes. "He enjoys your misery and soon, we shall enjoy his."

**~o~**

Cecilia wasn't surprised to awaken the next afternoon, completely alone. Her head pounded like a bass drum and her mouth tasted like the bottom of a birdcage. With a groan, she closed her eyes again and half-wished she could return to the nightmares. They would pass, this would not. They had spent the better part of a year hiding in derelict buildings and caves, unwilling to wager more than a month in the same location for fear of discovery by the Æsir.

Finally, she managed to take a breath after what seemed an unfeasible amount of time, her eyes not blinking once as she stared out, yet looked at nothing; the phantoms of her dreams returned in a dull blur. With effort she managed to blink and then again, to notice the meager light that escaped the snare of blacked-out windows.

The images seemed distant then, as if it never quite happened, but it had. The war of the Upper Realms was in full bloom and Rilien had made certain that she'd never make it to the battlefield. The elf's power pulsed through her mind and body like a parasite, influencing her thoughts, infecting every cell of her body. Innumerable tentacles wrapped in and around her soul like the roots of a plant with poisonous, deadly vines, burrowing into her subconscious, smothering every bit of light it could find – it had a firm hold on her now and wasn't about to let go.

In truth, Rilien's power made her feel invincible, even immortal. But she knew it would only be a matter of time before her mind and body would abandon her completely. It was now truly a race; would she conquer death before death conquered her?

Pushing her discomfort aside, Cecilia slipped her arms into Loki's leather jacket and managed to sit up, making as if to stand. Her long, black hair swirled and fixed in a strange disheveled mess. Sweeping her unruly mane from her eyes, she ran her hands over her sides, straightening out her jeans. She rubbed her eyes with her fists, hard, feeling the numbness of her skin along with the sheen of sweat. She coughed and reached over to her satchel and retrieved a pack of Dukes. Squeezing a cigarette from its opening, she tapped the base against the back of her hand and snatched it with an eagerness that belied her earlier efforts.

Tossing the pack back in her bag, she strode down the dark corridor toward the side exit of the abandoned porcelain factory. Pulling her ring of keys from the back pocket of her jeans, she tested several before she found one that fit. She turned a small key in the brass lock, and when it clicked, she opened the metal door and burst through the darkness and into blinding light. It stabbed her with blessed agony.

The gravel crunched loudly beneath the soles of her boots and she leaned against the shade of the factory's concrete wall. Bending toward a match-flame with a rapt expression on her face, she inhaled, feeling the reassuring smoke curl and wrap around inside her lungs. Instantly, the cigarette calmed her.

Tilting her head back against the wall, Cecilia savored the biting taste with her eyes half-closed. After a while, the smoke that escaped from her nostrils was the only sign of life. She waited until the ash was almost at a falling point before tapping it off to the ground beside her. She exhaled deeply, and then looked around before taking another drag.

Wisps of Loki's veil caressed the grime-encrusted stonework of the factory, concealing it in a shroud of cool vapor. It gave the structure a mythical quality, as if it had suddenly appeared on the emerald crest of the hill and could at any moment vanish.

Cecilia's gaze led her over the sharp blade of hill and down to startling, glorious green: the valley of a broad river that cut through Meissen, Germany. There were villages there and towns, but the stench of the city was a distant; she caught the sweetness of flowers.

_Soon_, Loki's words echoed in her mind; her belly tightening with anticipation, _all this will be ours._

Since coming back to Midgard, memories flooded her; anecdotes she hadn't thought of in years returned to haunt her. Cecilia had spent her childhood in Stuttgart, trusting she could make her way through the gloomy streets blindfolded, if need be. And for a time, she believed she could truly put aside her misgivings and reign over the people of Midgard with her beloved at her side. But the memories were too painful, too deep, and she secretly longed for the warm, familiarity of the Trellheim and her shieldmates. At a time when her whole nature yearned to give in to weakness, Tin had raised her to be a warrior because he knew what she was meant to do.

As the sun began to sunk toward the horizon, a tall, impressive figure appeared from around the corner of the factory walls. Flyaway strands of Loki's black, shoulder length hair fluttered in the breeze as he moved toward her with long purposeful strides, his hands clasped behind his back. His green, cotton pullover and dark jeans were impeccable, as always, and his strikingly beautiful eyes looked Cecilia over with a hint of playfulness.

"Where have you been hiding?" Cecilia said, greeting him with a ghost of a grin. "You're the worst sentinel I've ever employed."

"You are in need of a lesson in manners." Loki spoke every word softly and through his teeth, staring down into her dark eyes through the smoke of her cigarette. He plucked the burning stick from her lips, dropped it and, without looking, ground it with his boot. "Do not forget that I am your king."

With that raw reminder, he lowered his head and captured her lips with his. He kissed her with urgent, brutal desperation, wanting her to the point of madness. His desire was overwhelming; it pulled her toward him like a powerful wave drawing sand into the ocean. She did not fight him; she kissed him deeply as her fingers trailed over the cool steel of his defined shoulders, his muscled chest, and the rippled plane of his back. She knew his body intimately, she was well acquainted with every jagged scar and pain-drenched muscle, yet she felt as if she were discovering him for the first time. Hungering for his touch, she tasted him deeply, passionately, knowing that time was her enemy, that any moment this fragile bond could be broken.

Loki had never failed to comfort her through the sleepless nights, when she woke in the dark, terrified by dreams of Rilien hunting her down, savaging her with the images of the terrible deeds she had committed. She'd taken innocent lives and yet, somehow, Loki granted her clemency. How could such a man continue to love her after all she had done? His voice had soothed her ears; his intoxicating kisses had chased all thought of the incubi from her mind. Secure in his embrace, she had reveled in the touch of his hands and his lips, every nerve and cell in her body tingling with need.

And then he began to pull away, and she was overcome with loss, as if all the light in the world had suddenly been extinguished.

With his eyes still shut, he said, "Come, I have something to show you." He smiled impishly and licked his lips, tasting the remnants of their kiss.

Still reeling, she obediently pushed herself off the factory wall and followed him. Loki took her hand, holding it loosely in his as they slipped into a veil of invisibility. Walking down a dirt path that led to the river, he steered her left onto a barely visible track.

The trail wound through the trees, a narrow ribbon twisting through overgrown shrubbery and rampant wild vines. By then, it was dark and the moonlight shone through the leaves that fluttered in the light breeze. Digging her nails into her palms, she looked out to see the view of the moonlight on the water, the shadows of the trees over the grass. It was almost haunting.

Ahead, there was a crescent of weak light where there shouldn't have been. Loki crouched down and began clearing away a buildup of leaves and twigs from something, so she crouched beside him for a better look.

It was a manhole, partially opened; the light from below caused her to squint. When her vision adjusted, Cecilia gazed down at a shockingly recognizable image: the distressed emblem of a red skull with six tentacles.

"You are familiar with this?" Loki asked after a lingering moment.

"I'm afraid that every German is," Cecilia admitted warily. "If they cut off one head, two more shall take its place…"

_Hail Hydra_.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked, ignoring the uneasy feeling settling into her stomach. "Is it even necessary?"

"They have taken something of mine that would be of benefit to us," Loki said coldly. He wore a look of grim determination on his face as if there was no way he was going to fail this time. No way he could fail. "They say," he breathed against her ear, " that revenge is as sweet to the soul as honey is to taste."

**~o~**


	2. Chapter 2 - A Secret Agenda

_**Chapter 2 – A Secret Agenda**_

They had crept down the rungs of an old iron ladder that plunged, quite literally, into the bowels of Meissen. Flakes of thick rust cut into Cecilia's hands and fell from the thinning treads. She stopped to touch the wall with her palm. It ran with cold, dank water, trickling through the cracks and mortar lines of the intricate brickwork she now traced with her fingers.

Cecilia climbed down a few more feet, then stopped, and wrapped an arm around a rung. She pulled out a matchbook from her bag and opened it to reveal the remaining two tiny sticks within. With a renewed resolve, she steadied herself and mustered a determined swipe, igniting the match. She held it out, trying to find something – anything – that might give her some clue as to her surroundings.

The wall the ladder was against, she could see, it was rough, gray concrete, but on the other three sides, nothing, just more blackness, closing in on her, wrapping itself around her, smothering her. She blew out the light and hung out into the darkness, trying to touch another wall, but felt nothing. Realizing that Loki was waiting for her below, she sighed in resignation and resumed climbing down.

Her arms and shoulders burned by the time she finally reached the walkway and her hands were blistered when she let go of the final rung. Not daring to tread onward and lose the ladder, Cecilia held on with one hand and lit her final match, extending it out. From her experience in the Trellheim, it was so easy to lose one's sense of direction underground, and in total darkness, she knew that if she lost the ladder down there, she would never find it again.

The light revealed a catwalk that ran like a stream through the synthetic cavern that stretched around her, its sprawling enormity pierced by steel-cored composite columns that held up the world. Pipes of cement, clay, metal and plastic twisted in labyrinthine patterns: blue for water, gray for methane, silver for power. The buzz of electricity, the hum of pumps, the rustle of fluids moving, blending into a low monotone, quickly unnoticed. Not so easily ignored were the rats. The air carried a faint tang of ozone, a fainter smell of waste and rot, and a strong odor of wet rodent. It was hot, so thickly humid that gills would acclimate.

The match's pathetic flame was completely swallowed up by the darkness and Cecilia quickly found herself mulling over the idea of turning back. The silence was frighteningly intense and shadows before her were beyond what any light could penetrate, disturbingly black. With each step, darkness followed her; the tunnel plunging back into night once she had passed.

The path led to Loki, who stood pensively before a great stone aqueduct that seemed to bear the great part of Meissen's waste; its effluent raced by them as a black, raging torrent. Even in a space that could fit an entire city, the confinement made the torrent feel as if it could swamp them at any minute, despite the fact the path was three times the height of a standing troll above the boiling surface.

Wordlessly, Loki's eyes beckoned her to follow and they traveled side-by-side along the narrow, cast iron causeway in the direction of the torrent's flow; Cecilia's senses were keen as they led her blindly through the void. Before them stretched a long tunnel lit by a faintly flickering underground lighting system, and directly behind her, clinging to the crest of her shoulders and the crown of her head was the black cloak of dread that stretched back for hundreds of yards.

"Ten _years_," Loki said, smiling at her; his gaze trapped hers, holding it easily with the same strength with which he held her body between his hands. "Ten years you lived, huddled in the dark warrens of Nidavellir. Don't tell me you're still afraid of what lies within the shadows?"

Torn between relief and embarrassment that he had guessed what was going through her mind, Cecilia had no intention of allowing him the satisfaction. They walked in silence for several moments before Cecilia raised a question. "Where are we going?" she probed, lifting her failing resolve.

"The past," he answered, his breath fogging the chill air. He gestured toward the concrete vaults above, causing daemonic shadows to dance on the around them. "Mortals think themselves clever – burying what they should hold to the light. But the Upper Realms never cease to observe their progress, even as they vanish against a vast and timeless void, destroying themselves and one another."

"We are fortune's fools then, my liege?" Cecilia broke in. Her brows rose in playful query. Loki often overlooked the fact that it was _her_ race he aimed to govern. "Yggdrasil has smiled more often on us than on our enemies it seems. Is it out of sympathy, I wonder?"

The God of Mischief's expression was unreadable; his green eyes gleaming, and the movement of his body as he came toward her reminded Cecilia of the deliberate stalking of a powerful, sleek-muscled predator before it made a controlled leap on its prey. "You are a clever mortal; an unforeseen anomaly," he explained. Loki then reached for her arm, and while holding it in a firm grip, half turned her toward him. He was standing so close that she could feel his energy engulfing her. His aura surged and locked around her effortlessly, holding her captive. "Someone far more dangerous."

Allowing for no more than a few seconds of hesitation, Cecilia's lungs greedily sucked in the air she had briefly denied them. Forced into a small, self-conscious laugh as she swept Loki's dark mane back from his brow, playfully. "What have I done that is so dangerous?" she asked, fighting back her power's urge to defend itself against such confinement.

He leaned in. "Oh, all that sorcerous meddling," he scolded with sweetness she'd never affected for him. She felt his lips form a smile, there against her cheek. Cecilia found comfort in the gesture as he pulled her along beside him. What was it about this man and _only_ this man that gave him the power to affect her as no other man had ever done? She could feel the wild, reckless surge of her own desire to know the answer to that question, and was equally aware of the far more cautious side of her nature that urged her not to get involved in situations her instinct could not control.

Watching her, Loki smiled secretly to himself, enjoying the game too much. "Why couldn't you be satisfied with curing boils, or making it rain when it ought and stop when it oughtn't?"

Cecilia dismissed his mockery with a wave. "Simple curiosity, my King."

Loki's hand engulfed hers, his fingers strong and cold, curling around it, holding it and her ensnared. "Come." A low rumble hid beneath his voice. Loki pinned her with his gaze for a heartbeat - assessing her, as if his old fear of her growing power still remained. Showing fear was a sign of weakness for him: the idea someone else was in control and he was not. As much as Loki attempted to conceal it, he simply could not hide that his fear of her – or _for_ her – had indeed grown like a wound that festered over time.

They continued on into the expansive room, or whatever kind of vault, cavern, or abyss it actually was, swallowed by darkness. Judging by their descent, she knew they had ventured far beneath the earth's surface. The cavern's walkway came to an abrupt end as Cecilia collided with another wall, they turned yet another corner, feeling along the new wall in hopes that it would lead to their destination.

As the sound of dripping water fell away behind them, a dim, glowing light traced the outline of this new tunnel from beyond a distant bend. They went slowly, groping in the darkness, keeping in touch with the walls, momentarily expecting to stumble across an agent of Hydra. And when they didn't, a dim horror began to grow in Cecilia's stomach. Her heart leapt in her chest, and an anxious smile spread across her face. Hydra had enough resources to keep this tunnel secure, even in this darkness.

What if this was a ploy orchestrated by a skilled adversary?

What if there was no way out?

About eight hundred feet in front, they arrived at a pair of airlocked doors, half open – frozen as if the power had been cut just as they were opening. On the wall beside them was a simple keypad with two sections: one red and one green. They carefully squeezed through the gap in the doors and found themselves in a shelter complex.

Once inside, Loki conjured an orb of light and held it out before them.

"Oh my," Cecilia breathed.

They were at the rear door, standing at the top of a set of stairs, looking down into a circular main room, shrouded in shadows, dim structures visible only as foggy outlines. Two tunnels lead off on either side, and between these, a set of double airlocked doors, tightly sealed.

The air was getting staler now, Cecilia noticed, as she walked down the stairs and began to explore. Stale but still far better than the waste saturated atmosphere of the sewer. The circular room was stark bare, once white concrete now pale gray with age, the floor covered in a fine powdery dust that stirred around their feet as they walked. She wondered how long it had been since the last time anyone had been down there.

Now all that remained was a skeleton of a complex. "What is this place?" Cecilia asked, gesturing weakly at the walls around them.

In the center of the circular room was a strange, dark shape. "A cage," Loki explained as he approached the center, holding the orb of light up to it. The object was a clear box and at the top was a tube, also made of the clear material, travelling up to the ceiling and disappearing through a hole. Cecilia tapped the cube. It was so strange; it made no sound at all! It wasn't glass, it wasn't plastic, and it wasn't anything she'd ever seen before.

"More precisely, _my_ cage," Loki said quietly, as if it were something out of a nightmare. "These 'Avengers' as Midgardians called them for want of a better name, were actually a pitiable race. They misjudged their enemy's resolve. They misjudged my power. They misjudged their realm. And, most of all, they misjudged themselves. My power was made perfect in weakness…" he said, nodding sagely, hands cupped behind his back.

To misjudge oneself – or one's quarry – when the error of a mere second might be critical to the realm was almost inconceivable to Cecilia. In her own training, Tin taught her that only by focusing on the small things – a footfall, a whisper, and an intuitive, well-timed glance in the right direction – would greater things be done. As if to remind her, something squeaked in the darkness. She froze. A weight, something buoyant, skittered ephemerally over her boot toe.

_Just a mouse_. She steadied her breathing and gathered her wits.

"Fear not, Raven," he said with a measure of confidence, noting the apprehension in Cecilia's eyes. "This meager temple of Midgard has survived the ages because those that built it intended it to be eternal. It has waited for us, for you and me, to on day reclaim what is rightfully ours."

Cecilia shook her head. "Not mine." She circled the cube and noticed that one of the faces of its clear container had a keypad just like the one she'd seen next to the door, also with two sections – one red and one green. Cecilia reached out and touched the green half.

It was as if the entire world shattered as a massive bolt of lightning came down through the tube in the ceiling and hit the cube. The clear material contained it all, but it raged with pulsing, resonating energy. _What is this sorcery_? She asked herself. The electricity came from strange elongated plastic squares attached to the ceiling and all linked together by thin tubes.

When Cecilia regained her senses and her sight, she made a startling realization. _Was this cube meant to cage yet another?_

It was then, in that moment of reflection, that she made out a subtle clicking noise from afar.

"Who's there?" Cecilia said, spinning around toward the noise. The tip of her dragger scraped the keypad, sending a crescendo of sound rattling away into the distance. At first, the complex was no more than a private darkness, but the intensity of her uneasiness both frightened and disgusted her, and she could not smother it.

A troubling thought had crossed her mind that made her suddenly halt her stride: _Never follow a running troll, _Tin's words echoed with a powerful energy.

But the feeling was stronger by far than any troll, swelling and strengthening within her until it occupied her completely, obliterating all sense and feeling except this. Something else was lost there too; she could feel it as a truth rising from her spirit to invade her mind. She didn't understand the significance of reigning over the ascended realm of Midgard, and her emerging power had started to become a terrible burden. But here she was, with so much power, yet without the ability to save herself.

Instinctively, Cecilia and Loki held out their hands and created a solid wall of energy in front of them. A barrage of gunfire assaulted them from the darkness, every bullet harmlessly ricocheting off her coral-colored wall.

"Only cowards hide in the dark!" she cried out boldly into the shadows once the gunfire ceased. "Come forward and face me!"

Drawing in a shuddering breath, Cecilia harnessed the adrenaline coursing through her veins and prepared for another assault. However, in its place, she heard footsteps – agonizingly slow clanks against the concrete floor.

"Cowards do many things," said a voice from the darkness.

"Cowards," she snorted. "I know all about the like – conspirators with thieves and murderers, greedy, ambitious destroyers; it is men like that who bring devastation upon this realm." Summoning her will, Cecilia formed a round metal shield on her left arm – dense and solid, as if forged from the strongest steel of the House of Sindri, yet felt impossibly light.

"Cowards bred insurrection. Cowards plot in secret. Cowards kill from ambush." One of the shadows moved. It was a man, or at least it seemed. "Mind her, gentlemen, she calls me a coward, yet her valor is oozing away with a vengeance! You see, it's not that I mind the word, but an ill-bred youth is beneath my notice."

"I have a need for new recruits," the voice drawled on. "I seek those strong enough to stand beside me. Though, I find myself being drawn, mostly, to those who are strong enough to stand against me."

Cecilia said nothing as the other shadows stirred restlessly. She was beginning to have a horrible suspicion, a terrible surmise. What was she missing and not seeing?

Her eyes sought the shadows behind her.

The God of Mischief smiled widely. "And it has worked out so nicely, hasn't it?" He licked dry lips. "You wondered what weapon I had," he said, his eyes locking with Cecilia's as he stepped forward. Something flashed across the distance between them. "You_ wondered_, what could possibly wield greater power than the Chitauri's Scepter? And you foolishly set one of your agents on my trail, endeavoring to find out." Loki wagged his finger. "How very ill-advised."

Cecilia felt as light as a feather in the darkness as it seemed to consume her along with the fear – drifting and falling in the shadows for an eternity. This was a time for bold moves and decisive measures. Loki had come here committed to action. The bitter taste of deceit hovered on her tongue. After years of scheming and politics, her beloved seemed to welcome the quick efficiency of this solution. This was familiar. Certain.

"A woman warrior?" scoffed another shadow. "Do you expect us to believe that?"

"Do or not, as you choose. However strong in character you may be, however bitterly you may have learned through sad experience to discipline yourself to withstand the cruel bludgeoning of Chance, you are after all, but human," Loki said, pausing for a breath. "And I am a god."

As Loki turned back to face Cecilia, he threw an emerald green spell that hit her, causing her to writhe in pain. Her arms forced to her sides as if bound by an invisible force. "What have you done to me?" she yelled. Tears streamed down her face as the unbearable pain of his treachery increased.

Then, something hit her.

Sinking to her knees, Cecilia screamed out in agony and fear. Through her blurry vision, she could make out Loki mouthing the words, "I'll be back for you," slowly and precisely. Without her wits to steady her, though, she could no longer tell where the floor was, and although she knew for a moment that she was falling, there was nothing she could do about it.

_Loki, _was the last coherent thought she had for some time.

**~o~**

Even beneath her garments, Cecilia felt wet and cold to the bone. She had spent countless hours shaking, drifting in and out of consciousness. As the examination table beneath her rumbled, pivoting downward to its resting place, her body moved in slow motion. The room spun her around, her head bobbing up and down as if in a trance.

She caught herself thinking this couldn't possibly really be happening. Loki couldn't have deceived her. She couldn't have been attacked by someone she considered her lover. A man who truly loved her wouldn't have left her to suffer this wretched fate. She was so tired and she knew she was in danger of dying. Her body wasn't making enough energy to try to keep herself warm.

Unable to move, she turned her attention to the moving shadows across the room, focusing on one form in particular. Gliding before her eyes was a man in green livery, maneuvering a body onto an examination table in the center of the laboratory. There was little regard for the body's condition.

Only the examiner's hiss of disbelief rivaled the whine of the hydraulic machinery sealing the chamber. With his back turned to her, he continued his research. "Computer…" queried the examiner – a male voice full of curiosity. "Open data file for patient 8V1: James Buchanan Barnes."

Cecilia looked to her right, to the iron rungs cemented into the wall of the laboratory. Her only way out. She looked up at the vents above her. It had to be about twenty-five feet. She lunged with her upper body, a matter of inches, to position herself beneath the first rung, but to no avail. She felt a distinct thud as she smacked her head on the concrete floor, landing on the square faced platform. Her consciousness dimmed. She pulled in a deep breath that burned in her ribs. A roar of fury, pain and frustration tearing her throat raw.

With her arms bound, she felt her resolve begin to drain, to enhance the blood red glow of light flowing within her. She was terrified, but there was nothing she could do. She thought she heard a voice say, "Home base, we are sedating target 8V2."

Her attempts to squirm away were futile as a large guard in green uniform approached her. "Help," she whimpered.

A deathly grin peeled back the edges of the man's cheeks as he administered an injection into her arm. "May your blood turn cold before you waste away."

Still uncertain of what exactly was going on, an electrical impulse raced across Cecilia's body. She closed her eyes and faded out of consciousness again.

When she awoke some time later, she heard the muffled sounds of the airlock doors sliding open, but her blurry eyes refused to focus, only viewing in smeared smudges of color as her vision crossed and straightened.

"Is he conscious, doctor?" a voice asked. The apparatus hissed and glowed. "Did he survive the process?"

"Yes, Baron von Strucker."

"Prep him, then."

_Prep him for what? _Cecilia wondered fleetingly.

"That's not wise," interrupted the examiner. "What if he remembers?"

The fish-faced examiner referred to the scanner, pointing out the image on the screen. The device hummed over the man's half-naked body, sweeping across his upper torso and metal-plated arm along the north/south axis.

"That's not likely. He'll do the job," Strucker snapped. "Put him back into circulation."

**~o~**


End file.
